Inside the Braves with MLB.com's Mark Bowman

Jones hopes to publicly discuss his future soon

When Chipper Jones walked around the corner this afternoon, he smiled and gave the customary head nod. I laughed and said, “I thought you weren’t talking to us today.”

Jones then proceeded to tell me that he hopes to be able to discuss his future before the end of this homestand. In other words within the next five days, he’s expected to reveal why he told the Braves on Tuesday that he is leaning toward retiring at the end of this season.

“I’ll have something to tell you, it’s just not going to be today,” Jones said. “It will hopefully be before the end of this homestand. But right now, I’m not ready to say anything.”

After exiting Tuesday afternoon’s meeting with Jones, Bobby Cox had the understanding that he might not be the only Braves legend retiring at the end of this season.

“The best I can gather is he’s thinking about retiring at the end of this year,” Cox said. “Until he talks to (the media) I really can’t give you a correct or definitive answer.”

Over the next few days, Jones and the Braves are expected to negotiate how much he’ll receive of the $42 million he is owed during the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

“He’s been thinking about this all spring and through the winter that this would be his last year,” Cox said.

Cox once again had Jones positioned in the third spot of the lineup for Tuesday night’s series opener against the Rays.

“I think he can still get on base, knock in runs and still be productive,” Cox said. “It’s up to him. He can really help us. He’s not too far removed. He led the league in hitting two years ago and was second the year before. It’s still there.”

Resop arrives: As expected the Braves promoted Chris Resop and sent Jesse Chavez to Triple-A Gwinnett on Tuesday. But as late as early Monday evening, Resop was still under the impression that he could be traded.

The D-backs showed some interest and the Rangers were interested enough that he gained the impression that he would start for them during Thursday night’s game against the Marlins.

But in the end, the Braves opted to keep the rejuvenated right-hander with the hope that he proves to be as valuable in Atlanta’s rotation as he was in Gwinnett’s rotation this year.

Time to head out and do some of that house hunting stuff I was supposed to do on what was supposed to be a day off. Catch up with you in the morning.

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How bad is it raining at the stadium? Lots of folks seem to be sitting in the stands. And I saw an umpire standing in the home plate area for a good bit. How long have they had the tarp rolled out? In case the time stamp screws up, Im asking this at 7:25pm

Just another Frank Wren gem. Rafael Soriano for Jesse Chavez. Soriano has 16 saves and a 1.52 ERA. Chavez, not so much. Granted Wags has had a fine season( 11 saves) but we also gave up a Type A draft pick for signing him as well. Not to mention the fact that Soriano is 31 and just coming into his prime. If someone else nabbed him in free agency we would have gotten another high draft pick next year. Not to mention the fact that Soriano’s agent totally schooled Wren during the offseason.

What’s even funnier, Bill, is that my clock currently says 8:39 and your last post shows as 8:47. I posted something a couple days ago about some of the G-Braves and it showed up 3rd of the 6th posts total after I had posted, so it looked like I was the first one to talk about them and everyone else started speculating about who would be called up.

To me Soriano was always an enigma. I get the feeling that everyone wanted him out of town if he was going to get a big contract. He had the “injury” a couple of years ago and waits until a contract year to do his best work. Also, in the biggest situations he seemed to cave. But I must admit, all in all, we are losers in that particular transaction. But when you look at our young guns in the pen (venters and kimbrel in particular), I think we will be ok later in games. Which leads me to ask this question once again….Any word on Luis Valdez???

We could have a board game. A map of the world with a small baseball player. We would call it “Where’s Luis”? He might be in Peru with Joran Van der Sloot this week?
*
I think Soriano’s “mystique” had something to do with his language skills. That and his surly demeanor. Not that I think all that is a negative, the last thing I want in a closer is an “aw shucks” guy. I want that batter in the box to be wondering if the next pitch is outside corner or in his ear. He has always had dominating stuff and he sure is showing it at Tampa. His last 10 games he had a 1.04 ERA. I just hope he doesn’t have any reason to come in and pitch to us this week.

Wow. Will someone please put Kawakami out of his misery? This is painful to watch. He is setting the ball on a tee for these guys. Between Resop and Medlen… I think we have this spot in the rotation covered. It’s better to just go ahead and eat the money we owe KK. He’s more valuable to sit out then he is pitching.

Oh crap. Bill Hohn is umpiring in our series. We are gonna be screwed when he gets his turn behind the plate calling balls and strikes. I hope everyone remembers that game in FL where there were so many missed ball/strike calls and not to mention that infamous fist bump he gave the Marlin’s catcher after the FL victory. A fair an impartial umpire, Mr. Hohn. All that rain and lightning in ATL right now, and none of that lightning can hit that blackshirted sunuva……

KK may be sealing his fate. Another failed experiment. We may have the best paid mop up guy in baseball for the next 2 years. Even if you have to eat KK’s salary, how could you not put Medlen out there after JJ comes back?

Seems like Heyward is just hitting the top half of the ball whenever he comes up now. He just chops it down and off the infield. He can’t seem to drive the ball anywhere now. Now what do you attribute to that? Wait, lemme guess…half of you think its cause the league has his number now and know how to pitch to him, and the other half thinks its Terry Pendleton’s fault. Hypothetically, without firing TP, what do all of our great truthsayers think Heyward needs to do to fix his mighty swing?

Man, on what planet don’t you pinch hit for KK in the bottom of the 2nd. Bases loaded, no outs, Newly elevated Resop in BP and Kantwin throwing obvious meat. Is Bobby even awake in the dugout???? That’s just stupid in my opinion. The Braves are hitting Price better than expected, but for chrissakes help em out.

Yea trading for Soriano was a good one but trading him to the Rays for Chavez was horrible i mean there could have been anyone else u could have gotten from them maybe ben zorbist or dan wheeler hell u could have gotten lance cormier back i mean anyone.

I still maintain that Heyward reaching on an error in the 1st should have been scored a 1B-E3. Heyward was gonna beat Price to the bag, and Peña wasn’t gonna throw him out even if he did field the ball.

Tough game – sometimes they just can’t hit with RISP. The game could have been much closer. Has anyone noticed how many ABs with RISP Heyward has had lately, while batting second? Unfortunately, he has been struggling in these situations and I think it is a product of his injury. He is getting a lot of ground ball singles, not much else. I wish his thumb would heal already.

Anyhow, they lost game one against the Twins and still won 2 of 3 so let’s do the same.

Cody Johnson’s last 10 games in Mississippi, 6 for 41, 25 Ks, no HRs. 94 Ks in 198 ABs in AA this season.
Is there a hole in the swing, or a swing in the hole? Drafting high school power hitters is such a crap shoot. He makes Mark Reynolds and Justin Upton look like contact hitters. Maybe someday he’ll be a Russell Branyan type player, but he is really struggling right now.

Obviously, they can’t win every game, but it sure feels like everytime KK’s spot comes up, they don’t even stand a chance. How about passing a collection plate around the TED each game and the fans can donate money, so that Wren can just cut him and not worry about the salary loss….. I don’t think sending him to the bullpen is a viable option. He does not need to toe the rubber for Atlanta ever again (I know he’s going to). Back in the day, the Japanese were very honorable people and would throw themselves on the sword at the slightest embarrasment (at least in the movies…) I’m not suggesting KK off himself, but he should do the honorable thing and just tell the Braves “I suck, keep your money, I’m going back to Japan.”

Jimphelps, not sure what you mean about Heyward not being able to drive the ball anymore. He hit a double in his first at bat on Sunday. Yes, he chopped some into the ground last night (I only saw his first two at bats). It looked to me like he was rushing to the ball, which can happen when you are trying to catch up to a 98 mph fastball. There is nothing to fix though. Other than gain experience against major league pitching. Heyward is just fine.

I should have checked the box score before the previous post. Looks like Heyward had two hits last night and reached once on an error. He almost beat out the chopper in his second at bat.

How about Chipper….. A double and a dinger. Could this be one of those situations where he has been stressing himself out over the decision to call it quits or not and now that he has come to terms with himself, he can relax and get back to business? Wouldn’t that be a great end to the saga??

KK is responsible for ERA and that is it. Why bother talking about wins and losses? He can’t contro that. It’s a team thing. KK’s numbers are comparable to Lowe. KK is always up against the other #1 and we don’t score runs for him. Why is that his fault? I am not a KK fan but I don’t really see why everyone bashes him so much. I was at the game and he pitched okay. If not for the Escobar error he would have been out of the first inning down 1-0. Keep in mind that Lowe and Hanson frequently have first inning trouble too. You can’t look at wins and losses in spite of everyone and the media always talking about it. A pitcher can only control ERA. KK’s ERA is not great, but decent for a #5.

tommygriff – I was watching the Rays broadcast last night. This is what their announcer had to say after Longoria’s home run. “After watching the replay, it looks like Kawakami threw a guided missile on a direct path to the sweet spot of Evan’s bat.”
That sums it up pretty accurately. He was throwing beach balls last night. We didn’t have a chance. He was getting raked! He fell behind every hitter, walked too many, and put himself in vulnerable positions all night… and pretty much all season. He has had his moments this year… but you can’t “accidentally” go 0-9. Lowe still shows signs of dominance. You can’t compare the two.

I don’t know if you guys noticed, but we are not exactly sitting high in first right now. We only have a .5 game lead. When JJ returns, there is no room on this rotation for KK. It would be a travesty if Medlen does not become a starter.

Bravo- those statements are all subjective descriptions. In 5 innings, he had 7 hits, 3 walks, gave up 2 earned runs and threw 59 of 100 pitches for strikes. Those are the facts. Not sayig those numbers are great but they are also not poor and definitely not sufficient to say he should not be a starter. Having said that I would prefer Medlen is a starter instead but then what do you do with KK? If he was as terrible as you think you wouldn’t want him coming out of the pen either. No, I think he stays for the time being.

All of tommygriff?s guys will have a better ERA in their Head to Head matchups against Bravomania?s team.

Who thinks tommygriff wins more games when they play each other, all offensive and defensive stats being comparable? All of tommygriff?s guys average a quality start each time out, Bravomania?s guys don?t.

This is where it should be noted that all 4.50 ERAs are not created equal. There is way more than luck involved in this. Once again, Peter if you?re still out there, stats don?t drive baseball, baseball drives stats.

If this is too hard to grasp, go ahead and keep cheering when your slugger walks with 2 out and a guy on third, and I?ll keep on cheering my guy who hits the sac fly or groundout to shore that brings the run in. After we beat you, you can tell everyone why your guy is so much better because of his OBP. In October, you get the tv remote, I get the playoff tickets.

tommygriff – He gave up more than 2 earned runs in the first inning, let alone the 5 innings he pitched. Crawford reached on an error, so Longoria’s home run was 1 run earned. He then followed it up by walking Zobrist, giving up back to back doubles to BJ Upton and Sean Rodriguez to allow three more runs. So 3 earned in the first inning alone. A single / double / and sac fly later and it’s another earned run in the second. He had to work his way out of jams the entire night.
You can’t give up 4-5-6 earned runs per game and expect to win in the major league level. Statistically, Lowe has had an equally unimpressive season. It is an anomaly. However, who would you rather have out there throwing for you? It would be one thing if it was just this season, but look at his stats since the beginning of last year. He is a combined 7-21 with a 4.04 ERA. Medlen couldn’t do much worse…

bravo – apparently you are introducing a new formula for calculatng era so you better alert MLB. KK gave up 2 earned runs last night. Also, for the season he has more strikeouts, fewer walks and fewer hits and fewer earned runs given up than Lowe. This isn’t about which one I would rather have on the mound. It is about comparing the important pitching statistics and realizing that bashing a pitcher for wins and losses is not relevant. That is a team issue. KK can only control the pitching stats and his are better in most cases than Lowe. I would rather have Medlen start too but I don’t think that makes sense from a team strategy standpoint right now.

I guess winning isn’t a team strategy…???
and even though it isn’t in the books as “earned runs”, he EARNED every one of those runs in the first inning other than Crawford’s for reaching on that error. He EARNED the mammoth shot from Longoria. He EARNED walking Zobrist. He EARNED giving up the double from BJ Upton. He EARNED the next double from Sean Rodriguez. You can’t discount all of that because of a wide throw from Escobar.
There’s no way that was a 2 run gamr from Kawakami. Screw the official scoring.

Interesting. I guess I will have to bow out if you are not going to use commonly accepted metrics. If you were talking about fielding percentage it might be different. But era is a completely accepted stat as is.

Look, record or no record, Kawakami is still a good #5 guy in the rotation. his record should be more like 3-6 than 0-9. The nickname I’ve been seeing around here and over at DOB’s blog “Kanwinakami” or whatever, should be more of a lament and not an insult. I’ve been saying that in a lot of his starts, I’m sure he’s really trying to paint the black and be perfect on every pitch since there’s never any runs on the Braves portion of the scoreboard. Almost every game! So again, as a no 5 starter on most clubs, he is still pretty good.

That being said… Medlen has just been better and should stay in the rotation. Or maybe they’ll take Medlen out to showcase Resop and hope he has a couple good starts so they can move him and better the team down the stretch. Obviously that would be a risky move. Regardless, at the moment Kris Medlen is pitching like a top of the line starter, and makes the rotation look VERY good next to Hudson, Hanson, and Lowe recently (w the exception of the Arizona game).

Agreed. Kawakami with a few wins by now, would not be pressing like he is. But he is. The fact remains the Braves have won 3 of his 13 starts, and they cannot continue to spot the NL East 18-20% of the games. Medlen is clearly the better option at this point, physically and psychologically.

It really doesn’t matter, as Joe Simpson says, that Kawakami “hasn’t pitched as bad as his numbers”; all that matters is that when Jurrjens, the ace of our staff for 2 seasons, comes back, there is only one spot open, and you have to give it to the guy who gives you the best chance to win. Right now, that guy is Medlen. Every stat is superior. Kawakami has trouble with the simplest of clubs; Medlen mowed down the 4 headed behemoth of Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Kubel. Give it to the guy who is pitching the best. I think I’d rather take the Buster Posey I saw pitch in high school than Kawakami right now.

Man, Tommy is dealing tonight. It’s great to see him come up so clutch against a really solid ball club. He had a bit of a rough patch in May but he really looks sharp again. Being a big strong guy like he is, I can imagine he will carry himself well in the Dog Days to come.
Martin, just doubled, I think his nickname should be “Martin the Machine”. He just hits and hits and hits……

Double digit hits for at least the second night in a row, I don’t think we can complain about the offense. The guys looked good tonight. Tommy looked like a #1, and Martin is proving why he is the best 2B in the NL. As for Heyward, he could have easily had one more hit on the nice play by Crawford and he also hit the ball on the nose on his last AB. He seems to be staying off the high and tight a little more and I have the feeling he’s about to hit a hot streak. I hope the same is true for Chipper. It seems that Escobar and McCann are really starting to put good wood on the ball and even Melky is bringing his lumber with him. And, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but Blanco has done a great job of filling in for McLouth.

I don’t really mind that the All Star game is somewhat of a popularity contest, because a lot of the time you do see evidence of players who are performing getting their due respect from the fans. Martin is running away with second place, and he’s not a flashy guy. He’s a mostly under-the-radar player who is having an amazing year, and the votes show. Chase Utley is one of the most popular players in the game, so it totally makes sense that he is #1. Charlie Manuel will undoubtedly give Prado the backup spot, which will be amazing for the guy?he certainly deserves it. Mac doesn’t really deserve it after his 1st half, but hopefully he’ll heat up and get into the #1 spot over Molina. That would give us 2 starters, 1 backup, and Hudson also deserves to be on the team.

Katjam, if you actually read what I wrote you would have noticed that I stated, “Mac doesn’t really deserve it after his 1st half, but hopefully he’ll heat up and get into the #1 spot over Molina.”
And I also DID NOT say that Utley deserves to start over Prado. But Utley is one of the top 5 most popular players in all of baseball, so I am not surprised whatsoever. I am pleasantly surprised that Prado is actually getting votes, because he is mostly up to this point, an under the radar guy.
I would be surprised if by the end, Heyward wasn’t leading all outfielders in votes.

No it does not make any sense that Utley is #1. This is the 2010 all-star game and Prado is better in 2010 than Utley is. When they start having a career all-star game, then I’ll agree, Utley deserves the start.

You really think McCann deserves to surpass Molina as the starting catcher? Brian is hitting 30 points lower than his career average, he is off pace with his power numbers and is on pace to establish a career high for errors. Don’t get me wrong, I love Brian McCann. Hell I named my dog after him, but he is not having a better year than Yadier Molina or Pudge.

I guess we will just call it semantics with the Utley/Prado discussion and I misread the part about Molina/McCann. I did miss the getting hot part. I don’t think it would be possible for him to get hot enough in this short period of time. If he did, they would be great and it would mean big things for the braves.

There aren’t many things I hate about Major League Baseball. The All-Star voting process is one of them. The “fans” have no business voting for the players. ESPECIALLY since the the outcome of the game has an effect on home field advantage in the post season.
Adrian Gonzalez and Troy Glaus both should be there before Ryan Howard. Prado and Phillips deserve it over Utley, who is barely in the top 10 in hitting for second basemen. Hanley is near the top where he should be, but Uribe and Tulowitzki are right around his numbers and one of them will probably get snubbed. And how can you even explain Jimmy Rollins having nearly 1,000,000 votes? I could go on and on. The whole popularity contest thing really gets under my skin. The players / media should vote on the all-star game based on numbers… not largest fan base, media attention, has-beens, etc.

Just my take. While It’s interesting to read the various thoughts and I do hope Prado gets a little pub and is named to the AS Team.

I see this game for what it is, an exbition that is accompanied by a popular vote contest.

I don’t worry one iota about who makes/doesn’t make it.

Sadly, MLB glorifies this exhbition and attaches a false sense of importance by awarding Home Field advantage to the League that Wins.

Truly misguided.

In a Perfect World Home Field would go to the best record on the notion that that’s not enough time to make all the travel hotelarrangements then Award HOme Field to the League with the Best Winning PCT during the interleague Matchups.

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